Winner of the 2022 Philip Taft Labor History Book Prize Often cast as villains in the Northwest''s environmental battles, timber workers in fact have a connection to the forest that goes far beyond jobs and economic issues. Steven C. Beda explores the complex true story of how and why timber-working communities have concerned themselves with the health and future of the woods surrounding them. Life experiences like hunting, fishing, foraging, and hiking imbued timber country with meanings and values that nurtured a deep sense of place in workers, their families, and their communities. This sense of place in turn shaped ideas about protection that sometimes clashed with the views of environmentalists--or the desires of employers. Beda''s sympathetic, in-depth look at the human beings whose lives are embedded in the woods helps us understand that timber communities fought not just to protect their livelihood, but because they saw the forest as a vital part of them
Trade Review"An illuminating trek into the forests alongside highclimbers and other logging specialists. More importantly, it’s an examination of how politics, corporate boardrooms, and changing social attitudes and technology left many timber workers on the short end of the stick — and where things stand now. For all we who haven’t worked in the woods — and perhaps even for some who have — 'Strong Wind' is a fact-filled guidebook, with something interesting on every page." --
Chinook Observer"Steven Beda's
Strong Winds and Widow Makers is a wide-ranging and well-researched history of labor and the environment in Northwest timber country. . . . Beda presents a more nuanced account of the relationship timber workers have forged with the Northwest forests through several generations of living among them." --
H-Net ReviewsTable of ContentsIntroduction: A Place in the Forest
Part I: Place
Chapter 1. “The New Empire”
Chapter 2. “The Prodigal Yield of the Surrounding Hills”
Chapter 3. “A Goodly Degree of Risk”
Part II: Power
Chapter 4. “Conservation . . . from the Guys Down Below”
Chapter 5. “The Many Uses and Values of Forests”
Part III: Problems
Chapter 6. “Strong Winds and Widow Makers”
Chapter 7. “Tie a Yellow Ribbon for the Working Man”
Chapter 8. “We Keep Carbon-Eating Machines Healthy”
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
